Easy to understand...difficult to live

Fear is a part of everyone's life to some degree. In fact, fear is healthy and often keeps us from making stupid and dangerous mistakes. What I had not realized until the past few years is that at times I am becoming afraid to read the Bible. It seems the more I read it the more it challenges my assumptions and calls me to greater surrender. I have noticed that in my own life often my approach is to spend a lot of time trying to reason out what the Scriptures mean instead of actually just listening to what they say. This is particularly true in the way that I have approached the teachings of Jesus. As we read the gospels, especially the parables, we sometimes are forced to admit that the struggle is not understanding them so much as it is listening and applying the truth that Jesus is communicating. The “Good Samaritan” says, “Love your enemies.” The workers in the vineyard remind us to love the generosity of God and to follow his example of grace. The Prodigal shows us the shameful lengths God will go to in order to bring us back into the family. These truths aren’t complicated, just hard to live and thus easy to explain away. Kierkegaard said something similar when he wrote,

“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly …you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.” (Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard, p. 201)

We need to approach the Bible with our guard down. The goal is to set the New Testament free in your life. Don’t control it, just listen and ask God to help you to live like Jesus. It's a bit scary, but nothing to be afraid of...